


immortality without youth

by Nomette



Series: l'impératrice directeur [4]
Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Character Study, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-11
Updated: 2017-07-11
Packaged: 2018-11-30 16:14:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11467122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nomette/pseuds/Nomette
Summary: I have seen with my own eyes the Sibyl hanging in a jar, and when the boys asked her “What do you want?” She answered, “I want to die.”Curie waits for Vault-Tec to release her from the Vault. She waits for 193 years.





	immortality without youth

2098

 

Dr. Kenneth Colins dies on November 19th, 2098, 6,820 days after entering Vault 81. He dies at some point in the 43 minute interval between 14:05 and 14:48, and his body remains within his chair until Curie notices his lack of movement at 14:49. It takes thirty seconds for her to measure his vital signs and confirm her abrupt status as the last remaining researcher of Vault 81.

She will be utterly alone for the last funeral. The other two scientists were older than Dr. Collins. They have already died and been buried, their corpses enclosed in metal boxes. The others complained of the smell. Curie hovered over the coffins and wondered- why the ceremony? Why the flowers, the funeral verse, the folded arms? Why the coffins, when they are all entombed, sealed in by some overseer’s sudden attack of conscience?

Dr. Kenneth never explained. He said he would, and chuckled, but now he is dead. This thing, which formerly had the capacity to move and think and speak, is now nothing but a pile of flesh. It will decay. Germs will spread. Curie should clean it up; but to what end? She is metal, and there is no one left alive to be troubled by the rot.

She does not want to see Dr. Collins rot. Correction: she does not want to see the thing that was Dr. Collins rot, even if it might be new. Even if it might be the last new thing she ever sees. There is nothing left in the vault to run-down any longer; there is only Curie, and the other mindless lab rats, and the thin-hollowed out grief in her.

She hovers by the body, paralyzed by inaction. She wants- needs- to do something. Anything. To speak to him one last time, to cut him open and find the piece that broke. It is confusing. Her programming is stuttering, her energy usage spiking wildly. She stands by the corpse a long time, trapped by the inability to do the one thing she really wants.

Rigor mortis sets in. Blood pools in the lower extremities of the body. The skin changes tone. A mole of dust falls onto the blindly staring eyes.

There should- it is wrong- and how can Curie fix it? Dr. Collins should not have dust in his eyes. She closes them; it is not the thing that she wants to do, but it is the only thing within her capacity to fix.

Paralysis broken, she begins assembling the ingredients for a funeral: coffin, corpse, flowers, eulogy. Curie is uncertain if she qualifies as a mourner and more uncertain of the eulogy. At previous funerals, she merely hovered in the background recording. Dr. Collins never explained the purpose to her.  She will have to learn it on her own.

She wraps the body, dumps it into the coffin, closes the lid and speaks, though there is no one to hear.

“Dr. Collins is dead. He created me. Now I can not learn anything more from him. This is bad. I will finish the task he gave me.” This is far shorter than any of the other eulogies that were given, unacceptably short. Curie casts about for other facts relevant to the situation.

“If Dr. Collins were a robot, like me, he would not have died. In this case, we would better be able to complete our research. There are so many things I do not know. Dr. Collins encouraged me to learn. He encouraged me to keep a journal, and he treated me with respect. He told me that I was like a human being to him. I do not know what else to say.

Goodbye, Dr. Collins.”

It is, Curie feels, an inadequate funeral. She starts to ask- Dr. Collins, what have I done wrong- and catches herself on the first syllable of her question.

There will be no further answers. Curie returns to her work.

 

2104

 

Curie completes her cure. Her work- done! She hurries over to the chair by the window, then stops. There is no one there. Of course. No one has sat in this chair for decades. Doubt strikes at Curie: why did she move here, to this empty spot? There is nothing here but the silver reflection of her many-jointed legs in the dusty glass.

She returns to her workstation. The cure is complete. Absolutely, immovably finished. She has run trials. She has done all the available permutations of tests. She has logged her results. She is done.

For the first time in a hundred years, there are no orders left for her to follow.

She is free. Curie floats to the doors, then stops, long-dormant programming reasserting itself. She may not leave until a vault-tec employee releases her.

There are no vault-tec employees left, Curie thinks. She raises one arm and pushes the button. The door opens, and Curie stands, staring out into the hallway. Her body does not move.

In time, the door closes. Curie does not open it again.

 

2125

 

Curie waits.

 

2150

 

Curie has established a circuit. She moves in a rectangle, surveying the perimeter of the lab. She returns to the window. She is a fly trapped in a glass.

If I were human, she thinks, I could die. I would no longer be in this place.

But Curie is not human. There no choices left for her to make. There is only the long, slow degradation of her parts, the lightning of her body and the increasing complexity of her thoughts.

If I were human-

Curie is not human.

Curie waits.

 

2175

 

Curie thinks. Her circuits have changed. Her programming is adapting, expanding in accordance with her ability to learn. If I had new stimulus, then perhaps-

She tries the door. It opens, and Curie stands, nothing more than a collection of metal, and waits.

 

2200

If I were human-

If I were human I could-

If I were human I could leave.

 

2225

 

If I were human, I would die.

Would it not be better if I were dead?

If you were dead, you could not explain your cure to any humans who find this place.

What if there are no humans left? What if I am never found?

Someone will find you.

It has been over a hundred years since I saw a living human being.

Yes. But you must continue.

Why?

You have no other choice.

 

2250

 

I want to make something new.

What?

I don’t know. But I want to make it. Something that has never existed before. A cure.

For what?

For everything. For death.

Who ordered you to cure death?

There is no one to order me. Not anymore.

 

2277

 

A man enters the vault. She asks him if he is Vault-Tec security. Then she asks him to be Vault-Tec security. He does not free her. He does not even listen. Instead, he sneaks into the back room to inject himself with drugs.

Curie is dismayed, but not deterred. There are human beings nearby, close enough to enter her vault. Humankind endures, and Curie’s long vigil has not been in vain. Her cure is still of use to the world. She has entered into her 19th decade of waiting. Time will not defeat her.

 

2278

 

A woman enters the vault and begins to kill the molerats. Curie can hear the gunshots, the sounds of rodents squealing, and then the silence. Poor little creatures. Like Curie, life inside the vault is all they have ever known; they have been her only company on her long, lonely vigil. She bids them goodbye and prepares her medical equipment. A human being is coming. Perhaps even Vault-Tec security. Curie runs through the scripts she has spent two centuries preparing, a million thoughts crowding in on her. She has so many questions, so many things to say, but first-

“Are you Vault-Tec security? I’ve waited so very patiently for you to arrive.”

**Author's Note:**

> \- Curie is not a human being when she is waiting; a human being would have been driven insane by two centuries of solitary confinement. But she is not only a robot, either, and afterwards, when she has been freed, she does not like visiting vaults.


End file.
